OFF: Cathedral

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On fre 15 jan 1999 11.51 +0000 andrew <andrew at DELUMINATE.FREESERVE.CO.UK>
wrote:
> At 11:30 15/01/99 +0000, you wrote:
>>     Yer basic 3-piece plus singer, unashamedly 70s Sabbathoid riffing,
>>and walk a wobbly line between self-conscious epic rock pomposity
>>and self-conscious cheeeez extravaganza.
>
> now this is the way to sell a gig to me...

     As they say: oooooooooooh ye-ah (baby ...)!

     Hyperbrief commentary on my fave Cathedral discs:

The Carnival Bizarre: Contains arguably their catchiest piece
"Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" with numerous samples taken
from the Hammer Horror film (the actual lyrics are very Hammeresque
but have nothing to do with the film :)  First half of the album
is quite strong, the second half less so, though not bad.  One
song has drifts into the Moby Dick riff for the outro :)

"Hopkins" CDEP: Contains a cover of "Fire" with a horn section (!)
and an sprawling funk/jazz/blues/metal cheezefest which manages
to simultaneous rip-off blaxploitation themes and Sabbath.  Hysterical.

Supernatural Birth Machine: none of the songs reach the heights
of "Hopkins", but overall a stronger album, IMO.  Planet of
the Apes based "Urko's Conquest" is quite good, as is the
title track and the ridiculous "Fireball Demon".

Caravan Beyond Redemption: Out the end of this month.  I've not
formed a full impression yet, but I think they've gotten a bit
more melodic.  Similar to SBM, with generally strong songs.
"Voodoo Fire" is outrageous, as in the R&B/funk doom of "Freedom".
"Earth Messiah" verges on space-rock (either the drummer or
the bassist is a Hawkwind fan, I forget which), but I think
my favorite has to be "The Unnatural World".  There is another
Hammer-based song, "Captain Clegg", which is exceedingly weird.
I'm interested to see how the live versions affect me!

> i'll let you all know how it goes (dmittedly its a fortnight from now, but
> hey this is derby; we take our entertainment where we can find it: next
> week, dr hasbeen)

     Hey, yer better off than in Cambridge!  I've not seen
Dr. Hasbeen yet :/

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/